


Eden's Fall

by mrs_theirin



Series: the fall that feels like flying [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Eden is very afraid to love, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Hawke's POV, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), but don't worry she gets the hang of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_theirin/pseuds/mrs_theirin
Summary: The love story of Eden Hawke and Varric Tethras, extremely oversimplified and summarized, from Eden's POV.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Varric Tethras, Hawke/Varric Tethras
Series: the fall that feels like flying [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028490
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	Eden's Fall

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so i decided to turn this into a series for each of my ocs and their love interests and how they fell in love! i think it'll be fun <3
> 
> (a few things to know!)  
> -the line, "His quick wit and clever wordplay reminded her far too much of the two people she hated to be reminded of: her father and herself" does not mean Malcolm was bad! Eden loved Malcolm more than anything, so meeting someone who reminds her of him is very painful sometimes  
> -Bethany and Carver are both alive  
> -Carver is the Warden Contact   
> -Eddie is Eden's ex

Eden’s fall was delayed and painful. The kind of pain that heals. Like stepping into a fire knowing it’s your only source of warmth. 

That warmth came in the form of a dwarf, sauntering up to her, her stolen pouch in his hand. He walked with such confidence as he tossed the purse to her, grinning.

“Varric Tethras, at your service,” he had said, and she smiled. She was going to like him.

“Eden Hawke,” she responded. “Thanks for the help.”

His quick wit and clever wordplay reminded her far too much of the two people she hated to be reminded of: her father and herself. Although she’d never admit it, she tried to avoid him after their initial encounter. “Tried to” being the important phrase here. 

She found she was drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. He had invited her to join him at the Hanged Man and she couldn’t help but feel his invitation took #1 priority. She gave a lame excuse to her siblings and rushed off to find him, her heart pounding in her chest at the prospect of getting to know him more. After all, Carver didn’t ask many questions as long as it didn’t involve Templars, and Bethany was happy no matter what they did. 

They hit it off right away and for the first time since her family had arrived at Kirkwall, it felt like home.

She had met quite a few more people along her travels, every one of which she would become close friends with, but no friendship was like her and Varric’s. He had her back from the very beginning and she knew it. 

It never became more apparent than in the Deep Roads. 

She tried to keep a positive attitude about Bartrand’s betrayal; after all, he was a giant bastard to begin with, so a backstabbing wasn’t completely out of the ordinary. They pushed through the Deep Roads, no apparent end in sight, hope running thinner and thinner as the—days? Weeks? Months?—passed. It wasn’t too hard. She and Varric were a very funny duo when they wanted to be, and Anders and Carver would chime in from time to time.

The laughter dissolved into dust when Carver fell ill. 

She didn’t like being looked at like Varric and Anders looked at her as she dragged her brother through the tunnels, scrounging for any sign of hope. She had been determined. There was absolutely no way she was losing her baby brother to something as stupid as this. 

The Wardens were found and the whole ordeal was pushed deep, deep down into the corner of Eden’s brain that didn’t want to deal with things. She called it the Nope Box. Her heart cried out for her little brother, but she forced herself to move on. He would be fine. She hoped. 

It was not as if Carver was the only thing she thought about every hour of the day until she received news he was okay. Absolutely not. 

Varric had been there the whole time. Eden thought he was crazy, truthfully. There was no sign of remorse, sadness, or anger in his eyes when he spoke to her. It was almost as if the incident with Bartrand had never happened. Maybe he was hiding his true feelings to make her feel better. It wouldn’t be out of the question, she was doing the exact same thing for him.

He deserved that much.

He was there for her after every fight with Aveline, during every game of Wicked Grace, and every time she decided to make an exciting yet highly illegal decision. Living life with risk was fun with Varric. Everything they did felt like a future story, which brightened Eden’s mood far more than she’d like to admit. 

He was there for her when she began to screw around.

He never knew (or at least, she never told him), but there was something about a Varric Tethras story after a bad decision that made her day so much sweeter. She knew she shouldn’t have been sleeping around. She knew that an hour or so of pleasure would never let her escape the dread growing in her chest. She didn’t care.

Varric cared.

No matter the occasion, she called, and he came. Without ever realizing it, Varric steered Eden off the path of self-destruction, and she would be thanking him for the rest of her life, and possibly even beyond that. Little did she know that she would be thanking him more enthusiastically than she’d ever imagined. 

He cared when Leandra died and she lost the friend she had in the Arishok. 

It was easier to hide it, she thought. She couldn’t break the facade of  _ Hawke.  _ How she hated Hawke. Hawke could stare down at her mother’s dismembered body and move on, back to cracking jokes in a heartbeat. Eden, however, could not. She was very good at pretending she was Hawke, but at the end of the day, she was just Eden, and Eden had lost her mother (however cruel that mother had been when she was alive). 

Varric threw a party and she swore she could kiss him.

Turns out, she could. She did, in fact, over and over and  _ over  _ again. She finally let herself love again, and unlike Eddie, Varric didn’t want to hurt her. Varric held her tight, and in his arms, she was the entire world. There was no Hawke, there was no Viscount, no Chantry, no Templars, none of it. She was Eden, and she was  _ his.  _

The euphoria didn’t last for long, and soon her impressive mane of hair was on the floor around her feet. Varric was there for her then too. She loved him. She loved him more than one person could possibly love someone, and she was willing to protect that with her life, so she told him she loved him. Whatever he decided to do after that was his decision. 

What he decided to do was love her harder than she could ever love him. 

It wasn’t that she loved him any less, but Varric purely radiated love. How he held so much love and affection in that tiny body of his, she never knew, but she was eternally grateful for it. He was never overly romantic in public, or even in private, but she knew. She knew when he glanced over and gave her that look during Wicked Grace. She knew when he leaped in front of her to shoot an arrow at the man who was about to kill her. She knew when she’d catch him telling stories of the Champion of Kirkwall, only to throw “Eden” in the story a few times when he saw her frowning. 

The time she spent in hiding after the Chantry was unbearable. She could hear his voice in the letters he sent, she could smell him in the ink he used (although she was 67% sure he rubbed his letters on his chest before he sent them. It was just ridiculous enough for her to believe it), and she felt him through the blush on her cheeks when he included his more risque thoughts along with news. 

When she received the letter telling her to go to Skyhold, she went immediately. She knew it was dangerous, but nothing was going to stop her from seeing Varric again. Nothing. 

The Inquisitor was a sweet thing, her long blonde hair falling in front of her face as she introduced herself. Eden could tell by the way Varric stood that he held a great appreciation for the elf. Good. It was good news to hear Varric had found friends in the Inquisition, he desperately needed them with her gone. 

The last thing she expected from that journey was to find herself in the physical Fade alongside her brother. Certainly the  _ absolute  _ last thing she expected was to be pushed out of the Fade by said brother as he so valiantly and stupidly sacrificed himself to save her. 

That developed into Eden and Varric’s first fight. She didn’t like it. 

Carver, like the stupid, moronic,  _ wonderful  _ idiot he was, arrived two weeks later, explaining Merrill had saved him from the Fade. Two sides of Eden had to fight that day; the side that was screaming “KILL HIM” over and over again as she imagined strangling him for putting her through that turmoil, and the side that broke down into tears and held Carver to her tight, not wanting to let go. The latter had won. 

After your little brother’s returned from the depths of the Fade is just as good a time as any to have a wedding, so that’s what they did. A loud, boisterous wedding in the Herald’s Rest. All of Skyhold was invited and she knew Anders would kill her for getting married without him, but she figured he’d give her a pass this time. Only this time. She promised Varric they’d have another one with the Kirkwall crew present. It was only fair. 

Meeting Bianca was a pleasure she never thought she’d experience, which she was right about, because it was not a pleasure. Eden had used as many obscenities as she possibly could cursing out the dwarf after her deception had been revealed. She had been so angry she had almost killed Bianca, but forced herself to walk away. She wasn’t worth it anyway.

She was worth, however, snapping, “It’s not hard to see you never deserved him,” and  _ then  _ walking away. Eden deserved to have that much.

Bianca was dust in the wind by the time Halamshiral rolled around, and Eden had the most fun she had had in a while at the party. Who knew offending stuffy nobles could be so much fun? She even convinced Varric to dance with her, which was an absolute blast and something she would definitely be telling Isabela about when she saw her again. She would also be telling her how amazing of a dancer Iron Bull was (those large arms of his are surprisingly good for lifting someone such as herself from the floor), how talented a Tevinter magister could twist around her (truthfully, it was stunning how quickly Dorian followed her steps), and of course, how flushed Cullen became when Eden stole him for a dance. She knew Isabela would eat that up. 

When they returned, everything seemed right. She no longer felt overshadowed by Hawke. She was Eden Hawke. Eden Hawke had fallen in love. And Eden Hawke fell cautiously. 

But Maker, did she fall. 


End file.
